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Unlike many of my colleagues, I knew Trump would probably win. Based on the president’s congenital laziness and short attention span that I documented in my biography, I also predicted that his administration would be characterized by a lack of focus or follow-through. I did pretty well by my readers.

But there’s one thing I never saw coming.

I didn’t know he was a far-right extremist.

Who would have ever thought that a president would defend Nazis and Klansmen — repeatedly, even after catching hell for doing so? That, to appease “very fine” Nazis and Klansmen, a president wouldn’t bother to phone the family of a high-profile political murder victim? (Trump waited four days to call — and first did so during her funeral.) That a president of the United States would elevate the leaders of the defeated, treasonous Confederacy to the level of America’s Founding Fathers?

As CNN’s Anderson Cooper observed after Trump’s now-infamous news conference, “A few hours ago, the President of the United States revealed to us so clearly who he really is.”

Who is he? At best, an enabler and apologist for fascists.

At worst, a fascist himself. Though, to be fair, comparing Trump to fascists is unfair to fascists. Fascists got things done. Infrastructure, for example.

There were plenty of signs of Trump’s fascist tendencies. He promised to bring back torture; on August 17th he approvingly recounted an incredibly (i.e., literally untrue) racist story that U.S. occupation troops executed Muslim Filipino patriots with bullets dipped in pig’s blood. He repeatedly encouraged violence against peaceful liberal protesters at his rallies; he was still at it last month, when he “joked” that cops ought to bash suspects’ heads into the side of their squad cars. He wants to refill the infamous concentration camp at Guantánamo.

During the campaign there were also indications that Trump might be a reasonable man. Gay Republicans assured us his White House would respect pro-LGBTQA rights. During the campaign, Trump said Caitlyn Jenner should feel free to use the Trump Tower bathroom of her choice. Strange to think about now, but this is the same guy who endorsed single-payer healthcare, called for a tax increase on the wealthy, promised to lay off Planned Parenthood, and came out for amnesty for illegal immigrants (albeit after deporting them, then letting them back in…to help out the airlines, maybe?).

Candidate Trump was satisfyingly all over the place.

President Trump has been terrifyingly consistent.

Nixon, Reagan and George W. Bush hired Democrats to top posts. Not Trump. His cabinet and top staff is staffed by rabid right-wing lily white ideologues; it features more generals than an old-school junta. Trump’s first major policy initiatives — repealing Obamacare with no replacement and tax cuts for the rich — have tilted so far right that he can’t even secure the support of the usual sellout Vichy Democrats, or right-wing Republicans.

Even by the standards of a country whose citizens — even the “liberal” ones — believe they have the right to invade and bomb any country they feel like without justification, Trump’s presser and ensuing tweets were truly special.

“Mainstream” Republicans like Mitch McConnell may have the soul of a Nazi. But actual Nazism — the uniforms, the flags, the crazy rune shields — Americans don’t do that stuff. Actual Nazism is for a few thousand pasty tatt-covered muscleheads with little pig eyes. They are freaks. They are few.

Yet they have a friend in this president.

Let’s be clear: there isn’t much ideological daylight between “mainstream” Republicanism and little-pig-eyed Nazism. Nazism is militarily expansionist; so is U.S. foreign policy (which, to be fair, is equally supported by Democrats). Nazism centers around a dynamic cult of the Leader; Republicans rally around their president no matter what outlandish crap gets vomited out by his mouth. Nazism relies on scapegoating and harkens to a mythic past when the nation was united by a common cause and everyone (everyone who matters) was happier and more prosperous — c.f. “Make America Great Again” and Republicans’ baseless claims that illegal immigrants are criminals and rapists.

So Trump’s defense of Nazis and Klansmen isn’t a radical departure from the GOP political norm. Where he’s gone off the rails by American standards is a question of style.

Trump’s manner — as Senator Bob Corker aptly describes it, his lack of “steadiness” and “competence” — is why he almost certainly will not complete his term.

Trump is too tacky and high-strung and unpredictable for the business class. America’s ruling elites like their racism served up quietly in a well-tailored suit, under a tight helmet of elder-statesman hair, delivered calmly and slowly, so bland that no one pays attention.

This is where Mike Pence comes in.

(Ted Rall (Twitter: @tedrall) is author of “Trump: A Graphic Biography,” an examination of the life of the Republican presidential nominee in comics form. You can support Ted’s hard-hitting political cartoons and columns and see his work first by sponsoring his work on Patreon.)

After President Trump defended white nationalists who rioted in Charlottesville, Americans marveled at the lack of accountability. The White House staff was unable to muzzle an out-of-control president. Republican legislators refused to distance themselves, much less criticize him. The media seemed to be spinning uselessly, and showed no signs of a willingness to follow up. As for us, what are we supposed to do, attend another useless rally?

Celebrity liberals always threaten to head for the exits if a presidential election doesn’t go their way. Then they renege.

This year is different: some Americans really are leaving.

An early indicator of Trump-inspired flight came on Election Night, when Canada’s immigration website crashed due to visitors from the lower 48. Whether these scaredy-cats are motivated by Trump’s come-from-behind victory — so this is America? — or by the grim reality of Trump’s cabinet picks and executive orders — so he’s keeping his fascist campaign promises? — this is the first time I’ve seen people actually up and go in response to an election.

“Trumping out” is far too tiny of a phenomenon to qualify as an official Thing. By mid-December, only 28 Americans had applied for asylum. But my instincts tell me that’s about to change. And my instincts are pretty sharp: counting yard signs in my swing state/swing county hometown of Dayton, Ohio gave me an early indication that Trump had a strong chance of winning.

If you’ve got some money, college degrees and speak a second language (ahem, French), it’s pretty easy to get into Canada, which has served as our go-to exile since the Vietnam draft dodgers. With help from a lawyer, a friend of mine who said he didn’t want his children to grow up in a fascist country scored residency documents for himself, his wife and kids in just a few months. Canadian colleges and universities are reporting a surge in U.S. applicants — many of whom would likely stay up there after graduation.

I think most people who are eyeing the door are like me, in wait-and-see mode.

Let’s be clear: this isn’t about voting with our feet. If I moved out of the country every time I didn’t like the election results, I’d be gone after every single election, and that includes the local ones. I hate both parties; I hate the entire system. This is about self-preservation: what if some Trump nut takes it upon himself to shoot me over a cartoon? It wouldn’t be unprecedented.

It’s also about practicality. Fleeing Trumpistan would be much easier for me than for most people. I have dual French/EU citizenship through my mom, a status I have maintained in the belief that economies and societies can collapse quickly so it’s good to have an exit strategy. My French is passable. Thanks to the Internet, my career is portable. I could draw cartoons and write columns and publish books from anywhere on earth.

I talk almost every day with a colleague, a conservative journalist, about how we will know it’s time to leave the United States. Not to express disapproval – honestly, who would care? – but to save our skins.

You know that Martin Niemöller “first they came for the…” quote? Political cartoonists know that here, in the U.S. under Trump in 2017, we could easily be the first. So we’re watching closely.

When your government turns psycho, you don’t want to wait until it’s too late to get out. When you ask Jewish Americans what year their family fled Europe to come to the United States, it’s striking how most left before, say, 1936. The Holocaust didn’t technically begin until 1941, but earlier departures were easier — and impossible after World War II began in 1939. On the other hand, moving is expensive. And I’m American. I don’t want to leave. I like it here. Why jump the gun?

As Ullrich reminds us, the machinery of state repression moved quickly after Hitler’s 1933 seizure of power. Censorship, then arrests of left-wing politicians were an early canary in the coalmine. This week we watched Trump’s Republicans silence the unfailingly polite Elizabeth Warren on the floor of the U.S. senate. The president himself personally joke-threatened to “destroy” the career of a Texas state senator as a favor to police, because the lawmaker wants to reform civil asset forfeiture (when cops steal your property and never give it back, even when you’re found not guilty of a crime).

Soon after becoming chancellor, the Nazis began insinuating their one-party state into commerce, punishing businesses they deemed insufficiently cooperative. Also this week, Trump went after Nordstrom’s in revenge for the department store chain’s decision to stop carrying his daughter Ivanka’s clothing line. Trump Administration chief propagandist Sean Spicer defended the president’s bizarre comments, declaring Nordstrom’s decision “an attack on his daughter.”

The arrest of a politician would be such a moment. As would a “temporary” suspension of civil rights, even/especially if it followed the inevitable next terrorist attack.

I don’t have much use for the reliably impotent corporate news media — indeed, Trump’s win is largely their fault — but as a look-out-this-is-getting-really-real moment, Trump’s relentless beating up on the press makes me incredibly nervous. What will this guy do when the new Left gears up with big-ass protests later this year? Isolated from the rallies from whence he drew his strength, Boy Trump in the Beltway Bubble spells trouble; look for The Donald to wallow in paranoia so deep and dark that even Richard Nixon wouldn’t be able to relate. There he’ll be, surrounded by Steve Bannon and his other pet fascists — no one talking stay calm and carry on, everyone around him egging him on as he lashes out.

If you’re not scared, you’re not paying attention. Then again, maybe it’s not as necessary for you to watch the signs as it is for me.

(Ted Rall is author of “Trump: A Graphic Biography,” an examination of the life of the Republican presidential nominee in comics form. You can support Ted’s hard-hitting political cartoons and columns and see his work first by sponsoring his work on Patreon.)

To the French, it felt like the end of the world. 1940: defeated in six weeks, surrender, subjugation, overrun by German soldiers whose power of life or death were absolute and absolutely capricious. Fascism triumphant; organized resistance as yet unimaginable.

Simone de Beauvoir, who dedicated herself to the study of ethics, struggled to adjust to everyday life in Nazi-occupied Paris. On the Metro, a German soldier — Wehrmacht, low-ranking and therefore a conscript? — asked for directions. Seemed like a nice kid. Besides, refusal was dangerous. But he was an invader. What was the right thing to do: a little treasonous help, or send him to some dangerous neighborhood?

On a macro level, the French had to decide to what extent to cooperate with the terrifying new regime.

On one extreme were the collaborators and war profiteers who exploited their fellow citizens, welcomed every chance to advance their personal fortunes and thereby legitimized the Nazis and the Vichy-based puppet regime led by Philippe Pétain. Many were executed by extrajudicial tribunals after liberation in 1944.

At the opposite end of the behavioral spectrum were the Communist résistants de la première heureand the men and women of the maquis. Abandoning jobs and families, these people of principle lived rough lives underground, risking everything to terrorize the Germans and their French fascist allies. Many were tortured and murdered.

Though it’s premature to draw a direct comparison between Nazi Europe and Trump’s America, it’s never too early to start thinking about the ethics of resistance in a United States whose government whose repressiveness is likely to feel unacceptably severe to a significant portion of the population.

What is the correct way to behave after January 20th? Should one Keep Calm and Carry On? (Given that those now-clichéed posters were supposed to have been plastered on walls by a retreating British government in the face of a Nazi occupation of the UK, my inclination is to say no.) Ought one take to the hills and practice shooting down drones?

Like the French during World War II, most Americans opposed to/afraid of Trump will muddle through some murky middle ground. In times that try souls, ambiguity abounds.

We Americans may not be familiar with them, but there are standards. Everything does not go. There are clear rights and wrongs. Now, as we plunge into the moral abyss, it is important to learn, spread and enforce the Rules of Resistance for people who want to be able to hold their heads high when their children ask “what did you do during the war, daddy/mommy?”

Rule 1: Anything for survival.

As a teacher, Beauvoir would have lost her food rations, ID papers and livelihood if she hadn’t signed an odious Vichy-required certificate swearing that she wasn’t a Jew. Though she was appalled, she signed. You’re not required to starve to death over a principle.

Rule 2: Nothing for Trump.

Even though Jewish writers were banned from publication, Beauvoir submitted her novel for a literary prize. “If I had been awarded the Prix Goncourt that year I should have accepted it with wholehearted jubilation,” she recalled. Disgusting. Her participation legitimized the regime’s anti-Semitism.

The Rockettees and the singer Jackie Evancho will perform at Trump’s inaugural. “I just kind of thought that this is for my country,” Evancho said. Jennifer Holliday initially said she’d do the gig as well: “I’m singing on the mall for the people,” said Holliday. “I don’t have a dog in this fight.” They are wrong: it is precisely for their country that they ought to have opted out, as Ice-T and Elton John did. The one thing Trumpism offers is ideological clarity; at times like this, everyone has a dog in the fight, ostriching not allowed.

When you’re considering whether or not to participate in something Trump-y or government-y during the next few years, get educated. Then ask yourself: what would I think if I were one of the people being targeted by Trump and the Republicans? How would an immigrant awaiting deportation feel about Jennifer Holliday while watching Jennifer Holliday croon on TV in a nasty ICE prison? How will someone dying of a disease because she can’t afford treatment after losing Obamacare feel about the Rockettes?

Whether you live under Nazi occupation or Trumpian oppression, refusing to keep informed is no longer acceptable.

To her credit, Jennifer Holliday backed out of her scheduled inaugural performance in response to a social media firestorm, explaining that she had been “uneducated on the issues.” She continued: “Regretfully, I did not take into consideration that my performing for the concert would actually instead be taken as a political act against my own personal beliefs and be mistaken for support of Donald Trump and Mike Pence…I HEAR YOU.”

Everything is always a political act. Now the stakes are even higher.

If you’re a member of the armed forces or the police, you are morally required to resign and find another job.

If you work in a political post within the federal government — the diplomatic corps, for example — or a post that has policy implications, like the NSA or CIA, a morally upright person has no choice but to quit in protest.

If you have the opportunity to expose wrongdoing from within, you must act as a whistleblower.

If you have the chance to resist Trump’s protofascist policies, you must do so. You must hide the undocumented immigrant on the run. You cannot submit a bid to construct the Wall. You must, if you work for an insurance company, try to avoid enforcing rules that deny healthcare.

One of the things people overseas tell me they like about Americans is that we’re happy-go-lucky. That has to change.

It’s time to get serious.

(Ted Rall is author of “Trump: A Graphic Biography,” an examination of the life of the Republican presidential nominee in comics form. You can support Ted’s hard-hitting political cartoons and columns and see his work first by sponsoring his work on Patreon.)

Donald Trump has appointed Rex Tillerson, the sitting CEO of ExxonMobil, as Secretary of State. Which is really weird. Why are Democrats focused on something relatively minor: his relationship with Russia?

Most of the mainstream Republican Party presidential candidates advocate extreme positions on immigration, including mass deportations. They deny the reality of climate change science and evolution. They think torture is fine, oppose gay marriage, and remain silent about the murder of abortionists. Amid this shift to the right, some “moderate” Republicans say they’re still a legitimate voice within the party. But does it matter?

As American voters once again gear up for a presidential campaign season in which all the options are evil or slightly less evil, it is striking that the system itself remains in place, mostly unquestioned.

Though laudable for finally acknowledging that the United States tortures and kidnaps people, the Senate torture report’s principal arguments against torture rely not on the basis of morality or law, but its supposed ineffectiveness. This what moral corruption looks like.

Two years before leaving office, President Obama is offering approximately 5 million illegal immigrants temporary legal status. But what happens if they come out of the shadows, and then the political climate changes due, for example, to a nativist Republican presidential administration?

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Ted Rall is the political cartoonist at ANewDomain.net, editor-in-chief of SkewedNews.net, a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is the author of the biography "Trump," to be published in July 2016.